


You Like Her (I Like You)

by Eligh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, the boys would save themselves a lot of hurt if they just talked, with a sort of bittersweet ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5572303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eligh/pseuds/Eligh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's it called when you give someone what you think they'd want, and don't let yourself be quite as happy in the process? </p><p>or</p><p>Phil could have fallen in love with Rosalind, and yet...</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Like Her (I Like You)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my extremely twisted take on the the themes I personally think are present in the world's most depressing holiday story, the Gift of the Magi. 
> 
> Spoilers through the S3E10, though it goes AU there at the end.

“You like her,” Clint said, still splayed in all his naked glory over his couch, an insolent, dangerous smile on his face, and Phil sighed, shrugging into his shirt.

“I don’t trust her.” He struggled for a moment with his buttons—because he never stayed at Clint’s; there was no possible way that Clint would want that—but then Clint was there, blue eyes focused, fingers nimble as ever. Nimble as they’d been just an hour or so ago, when he’d, when he’d, when he’d ripped the zipper on Phil’s jeans getting them off and smirked when Phil protested the rough treatment of his clothes and bit Phil’s neck and—

Phil closed his eyes and let Clint redress him.

“You still like her,” Clint said in the darkness behind Phil’s closed eyelids. His hands brushed over Phil’s chest. “You should ask her out.”

“Isn’t it a little masochistic of you to tell me that?” Phil asked. “If I ask her out, we’d have to stop… this.”

Clint’s hands curled in on themselves, suddenly stiff (or was Phil imagining tension where there wasn’t any?) his blunt nails gentle on the linen of Phil’s shirt. And when Phil opened his eyes, Clint was smiling at him, for all appearances easy and relaxed. “Sure, but if she makes you happy,” he said.

Clint made him happy.

And yet.

“Maybe,” Phil told him. Forced a smile until it wasn’t forced. “I mean, she’s probably evil. A lot of people seem to be, these days.”

“Most of them, actually.” Clint screwed up his face in a grimace. “The numbers are honestly really troubling.”

They smiled at each other then, flippant and irreverent, and like always, Phil wanted to sway forward, kiss him goodbye. And also like always, he squashed the urge down. Hard. “I gotta go,” he said instead.

Clint took a step back. “Tell Ros hi,” he said, something unreadable on his face.

Phil rolled his eyes. “She has no idea who you are.”

The smirk reappeared. “Tell her hi anyway. And sure she knows who I am. I’m fucking Hawkeye, I’m awesome.”

“You’re an idiot,” Phil said, unbearably fond. “I’m not telling her anything.”

Clint smiled at him, and Phil smiled at Clint, and they stared at each other for just a beat too long, and then Clint coughed and looked away, scratching at his hairline on his neck. “Don’t forget to wrap your soldier,” he said.

“Jesus, you’re the worst,” Phil told him. Clint grinned. “Okay, I’m leaving. Try to, I don’t know. Not get shot or whatever you do.”

“Sure, sure.” Clint waved him off and went to let Lucky out of the bedroom. Phil left without another word, closing the door on Clint’s anguished, “Aw, Lucky, no, not my pillows, you’re an awful dog—” and only stood in the hallway for maybe five seconds to catch his breath before he straightened his shoulders and pressed the button for the elevator.

~

“She was working with Hydra,” Phil said late at night, pressing his cell hard between his shoulder and his ear. “But she didn’t know it, I don’t think she actually knew it—”

“You trust her now,” Clint said, tinny and hundreds of miles away.

“I mean.” Phil dithered for a moment, tapping his pen against his desk. “Yes.”

There’s a brief moment of silence down the line and then: “Well that’s good. You gotta have people you trust, Phil.”

“I trust—” you. “Lots of people.” Phil closed his eyes and shook his head. “You know, Melinda. And Syke—or, I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” Clint sounded amused.

Phil pressed his lips together. “ _Daisy_. And I trust that my team will do what needs doing if I need them to do it—”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Clint interrupted. “That’s not the same as trusting people and you know it. You’re not a fucking superhuman, Phil, you gotta have someone to share the load.” He cleared his throat. “Actually, even superhumans need someone to share the load, have I told you how fucking crazy Cap’s going with this training shit he’s been working on?”

“No,” Phil said. He knew what Clint was doing, and spent half a moment being wordlessly grateful. “But I want to hear about it.” He leaned back in his chair and let Clint distract him for a little while.

~

“Do you love her?” Clint asked into the skin of Phil’s stomach. Phil threaded his fingers as best he could into the short-cropped hair on the back of Clint’s head—one patch was shorter than the rest, singed down close to the scalp, and there was shiny-pink new skin littered over most of Clint’s arms and chest and he was acting like he wasn’t hurting but Clint was only human, just some guy with good aim and Phil couldn’t lose him—

“No,” Phil said, as Clint’s lips went lower, his stubble scraping against Phil’s thigh. And because Phil didn’t deserve this, and because Clint wouldn’t want him like Phil dreamt about anyway even if he _did_ deserve it, he paused and then deliberately said, “But I could.”

Tell yourself something long enough and you can make it true. Phil had to believe it.

Clint huffed out a breath and then put his mouth where Phil needed it. Phil closed his eyes, breathed in the smell of Clint’s apartment—dog and coffee and gun oil and string wax and what was probably Kate’s perfume and _Clint_ Clint Clint—and let himself go.

~

“Your phone says ‘Master of Arrows and Badassery’ is calling,” Ros told him, smiling as she inspected the screen. She was lying on her stomach, her bare back smooth and milky in the moonlight filtering in through her bedroom windows.

“God, he’s such a jackass,” Phil said fondly, slipping back under the covers and taking the phone from her loose grasp. “He changes his contact info every time I see him.” He hesitated for a moment, but then slid the lock to ignore the call and put the phone down on the nightstand next to the bed. Ros favored him with a raised eyebrow.

“Arrows?”

“Hawkeye,” Phil explained, and Ros’ face smoothed over in understanding.

“You know Hawkeye,” she said, sounding impressed.

“Of all the Avengers, he’s the most annoying,” Phil said, and it almost wasn’t a lie. Clint had a knack for inspiring irritation in most people; it wasn’t anyone’s fault that he never annoyed Phil. “Though it’s a close call with Stark.”

She stared at him for a moment, a small, wry smile on her face. “Do you ever stop and think about how insane our lives are? With superheroes and these Inhumans and… just, when I was a kid, getting started with all this, I never thought…”

“I try not to think about it often,” Phil confessed. “It’s too weird.”

She leaned over and kissed him, long and slow and full of promises that Phil wasn’t sure he could return. “I’m hungry,” she said as she pulled away. “What do you say about finally getting those burgers?”

~

“He killed her,” Phil told Clint’s voicemail, and of all the goddamn times for Clint not to pick up— “He fucking killed her, Clint, shot her in front of me. I’m—I have to go get him, I know you understand, I _have_ to, but—” he sucked in a breath, swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know if I’ll come back. I will if I can, but—” he closed his eyes, rested his forehead against his prosthetic. “Look. She was important, and I’m trying to explain it away because you won’t be able to talk me out of it, but just know—” Another breath. “I love you, okay? I’m stupid and I know this is the worst possible way to tell you, but there it is.” He paused, thinking. There wasn’t really anything else to say, except, “Be safe.”

He didn’t bring his phone when he headed for the Bus.

~

The body of what was presumably the astronaut, and who presumably Fitz had good reason to shoot, was flaming into nothingness just feet from the portal that will bring them home, and Ward’s fucking—awful—smug—shitstain of a face was grinning up from the sand and dirt and Phil—

Hated him.

He started to press, and Ward’s mouth slashed open in a bloody grin, ready to say something and—

An arrow sprouted from the top of Ward’s head with a thwip and a familiar crack of viscera and bone.

Phil looked up.

Clint was standing just this side of the portal, wind whipping the dirt into eddies at his feet, lightning crackling with the power of the interdimensional hole and with the fury of Clint’s gaze. “Let’s fucking do this,” he shouted, and then Phil was on his feet and staggering toward him.

Fitz disappeared homebound and an instant before Phil could follow him, Clint stopped them, just for a moment, his grip a brand of heat on Phil’s arm. “You’re not a murderer,” Clint said, blue eyes fierce. Phil couldn't help it; he stared speechless and confused. He wasn’t thinking straight.

“Yes,” he said. “I am. Everyone who touches me dies, or hurts, and I can’t—” He reached out and touched Clint’s face. There was a shallow cut running the length of his cheek from just under his left eye to down below the jut of his chin.

“Fucking bastard,” Clint muttered, and shoved him through the portal.

~

“You can’t say that and expect me to not come after you,” Clint said later, much later, after the grit from another world was washed from their skin. Phil was straddled over Clint’s lap, his hands on Clint’s shoulders, and the press of Clint so deep inside him hurt a little and pleased a little and Phil couldn’t quite catch his breath.

Clint’s hands tightened on his hips, moving him up and down with ease, the muscles that Phil had spent years silently—and then not-so-silently—coveting bunching and shifting in steady rhythms under his fingers. “I love you so fucking much,” Clint said, his face upturned, his mouth open and breath heavy. “You don’t fucking leave me, Phil, you don’t fucking get to do that—”

Phil kissed him for the first time; Clint gasped into his mouth and came with a cry.

~

“I’m sorry about Ros,” Clint said later. He was wrapped up in Phil’s arms, his head resting over the scar on Phil’s chest. “I mean. I know she was—”

“You didn’t like her,” Phil interrupted, his voice rumbling low. “You don’t have to act—“

“I’m not fucking acting,” Clint said, sharp edged suddenly, and bristling. Phil tightened his arms around Clint’s back and forced him back down, to quiet, to just being there together. “’m not,” Clint murmured after a moment. “I might not have liked the fact that she got to fuck the man I love, but I wanted—I always want—you to be happy, and, and, and _you_ liked her.” He turned his head, his lips brushing the scar, brushing Phil’s heart. “And so I’m sorry.”

Phil went quiet for a long moment. “Thanks,” he said finally.

~

“You’re insane if you think I’m leaving your side,” Clint said in the morning, and that, apparently, was that.

Phil’d have to think of something to tell the team, and—he glanced over at Clint struggling into a pair of pants, cocking his head when Clint flopped dramatically backward onto Phil’s narrow bunk, the only man in the world to bemoan his leg muscles as a deterrent to skinny jeans.

“Goddamn things I don’t even know why I buy them but Tasha says,” Clint rattled off under his breath, and Phil figured that the truth would do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody who has commented on one of my previous stories recently! I screwed something up while I was poking at ao3 last time I was on, and as a result, didn't get any notices about recent comments sent to my email! I try not ignore comments, but now shit I feel bad 'cause I've got piles of messages from several months ago and so I was not ignoring you on purpose, but I'm probably not gonna respond 'cause I'm socially awkward and responding to something from so long ago sorta freezes me up in a panic. 
> 
> But know that regardless of my personal computer/social/life in general failings, Fine Archivists of Our Own, you are the wind beneath my wings.


End file.
